As it is generally known, virtual machines are computer software emulations of hardware computer systems. Virtual machines are typically created by and run on a hypervisor or virtual machine monitor that may also be referred to as a virtualization platform or virtualization environment. Virtual volumes have been used to integrate physical, non-volatile data storage into the virtualization environment. Some data storage systems (e.g. storage arrays) have exposed virtual volumes as data storage objects to the virtualization environment, making it convenient for the virtual volumes to then be consumed as virtual disks by virtual machines running in the virtualization environment.
Under various types of circumstances, it may be desirable to change the location of a virtual volume from a first data storage system to a second data storage system. Examples of such circumstances include without limitation resource imbalances that may arise between different data storage systems, such as an inadequate amount of resources (e.g. storage, processing, and/or network resources) being available to support the virtual volume on a first data storage system, and a sufficient amount of available resources being available to support the virtual volume on a second data storage system.